Dust in the Wind
by Aoi Shoudou
Summary: With his orphanage backed into a financial corner, King begins to get desperate, and only through the help of an innocent little girl's guidance does he build the courage to face what troubles him.


Dust in the Wind  
  
  
A/N: What the hell? King angst? Oh come on, you know you wanna read it. Really.  
  
  
  
  
  
Hard times had fallen on old King's orphanage, a fact that saddened him to no extent. Government funding had pretty much been thrown out the window, and having eschewed his professional wrestling venue in favor of a certain fighting tournament that he'd lost anyway, his financial growth had all but stagnated. He realized that fact in every frayed blanket wrapped around a child, every crumbling cradle with two babies curled inside, every shoddy wooden table with sparse portions of stew atop it, and seeing that hurt him like no physical pain ever did. It had never been a particularly lavish institution to begin with, and time had wrought its cruel punishment on the undeserving place; coupled with King's inability to purchase anything new or even repair what he did have, the orphanage was falling apart at the seams. He loved these poor children with every ounce of emotion that his battle-scarred old heart could muster up, but the miserable truth was that time was running out for his humble little home.   
King had not drank in a long time. It had been four years since he and Armor King, after a rousing twelve hours of training, had hit some unsuspecting Brazilian bar, and every day afterwards he craved another Tequila. He couldn't afford that, though - not when he had children to take care of. Financially or otherwise, intoxication was out of the question. As tempting as cracking open a bottle of booze would be after a stressful day tending to diapers and disputes, he had priorities. However, as King stumbled out of his room into the back overlook, an emotional train wreck, he realized that alcohol was just what he needed.  
He turned to a woodpile by the back door. It had grown far too big, between King's bored insomniac woodcutting binges and the dearth of cold Arizona winters, but that only helped to serve his purpose better. Tucked behind it was a well-aged bottle of Corona. This was his ace in the hole for a night like this, and it was the most beautiful sight he could ever ask to see, more beautiful than the iridescent canopy of stars hanging above him or the view peering down on the hilly landscape. The problem was that it was warm. King couldn't bear to choke down warm Corona, so that meant a return to the house to get a cold glass.  
As he walked slowly through the house, so as not to wake up one of his sleeping children with the creak of a floorboard, he couldn't help but look at his weakly illuminated room as he passed by. The desk lamp shone upon an obscene amount of invoices, taxes and bills, and just seeing them incurred a fresh sensation of despair in King's stalwart soul. He shook his head, still masked, and before he knew it had found himself at the fridge. Time seemed to be a warped concept at this point; his stagger back outside to the overlook seemed to take an infinitely short amount of time. His final step garnered a particularly loud squeak from the stairs leading outside, and he flinched just hearing it. He could think of three different kids who would probably wake up just to see what caused it.  
Just thinking of those children made King smile. As their parents, often young mothers or negligent fathers, arrived with their toddler in tow, King saw a sadness written into their eyes that no child should experience. He had never refused a child for any reason. He couldn't bring himself to turn away from that winsome sorrow. King was never exactly sure where he found the time to bond with all of those orphaned offspring, but he found himself quickly absorbing information about them: what their favorite food was, the toys they liked to play with, who in the orphanage they thought was cute... They had become his best friends, and King grew to appreciate their company more than most adults. These children idolized King, as a confidant and friend, and that was more important to him than the cheering of any multitude of fans.   
The smile soon faded as he arrived back at the table, Corona perched there like some curvy raven, and popped the top open with little effort. The golden yellow color appeared far darker under the cover of the moonlit night. As he lifted the frosty mug to his lips, he heard creaking on the stairs. Just as he'd thought, someone had heard him.  
"Mister King...?" murmured a sleepy and unassuming voice. King put down the glass silently and got up from his seat.   
A little girl was perched at the foot of the stairs. Her eyes were droopy and lined with dark circles; she had clearly been aroused from a peaceful sleep by King's creeping about. As he walked towards the girl, getting ready to usher her back to bed, he checked the time on his wristwatch. 3 AM.  
"What are you doing out here, sweetie? It's late...You need to go to sleep." She looked straight at his face with a slightly upset expression.   
"Is something wrong?" he asked her.   
"I heard you moving around, and you weren't in your room...so I got scared." King blinked a little, but then remembered this little girl's past. She had been mysteriously abandoned by her parents before King had discovered her and taken her to the orphanage. He suddenly felt a little guilty that this late-night excursion had ever happened in the first place, if only because it disturbed the poor thing.   
"There's no need to be scared," he said, smiling at her. She couldn't see it under the mask, but she could in the way his eyes twinkled at her. The children loved that mask, so he grew accustomed to leaving it on.   
The little girl, garbed in pink pajamas adorned with caricatured stars, walked to the fenced-off edge of the overlook and looked up at the sky. King smiled at her blissful innocence. She didn't care about the fiscal situation at the orphanage; she was just happy to have someone to support her, care for her, love her.   
"I can't sleep!" she said loudly, and turned to King, tiny hands clasped on the railing. He walked over to her and knelt down so that his eyes matched hers, piercing ebony eyes that found their way right to his exhausted soul.  
"How about I tell you a story?" he offered, and the girl smiled and nodded. King had long since become a master of improvised stories. With twenty different children to tell unique bedtime stories to, it became something of a necessity. He smiled at her and began.  
"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little girl, just about your age, and she had a very happy life. She had parents that loved her very much and made sure that she was never sad."   
For once, King had no idea where he was going with this story. He looked into the girl's expectant eyes and effortlessly took her girl into his muscular arms, cradling her like a baby. She giggled.  
"One day, though, the little girl's parents went far away and left her with nothing but a letter. That letter said,   
"'To our beloved daughter: sometimes, there are things that happen in life that we cannot help, and that is what happened to us. We have to leave you here, and we probably will never see you again.' As she read this, the girl began to cry, because she would never see the mommy and daddy that she loved so much again. The letter wasn't done though."  
"'Before we leave, we want to tell you what a wonderful girl you are, and that no matter what happens to you or us, that there will always be someone in this world who loves you more than anything else. We love you and hope you will become a fine young woman.'"  
"But the little girl didn't want to listen. She left her home to find her mommy and daddy, and she walked such a long way, and walked and walked until she couldn't walk anymore. And then she began to cry, and a man heard her crying and asked her 'What's wrong?' And the little girl replied, 'My mommy and daddy are gone! Will you help me find them?' And so the man and the girl looked and looked for her parents, but they couldn't find them. And the girl finally said to the man, 'Will you take care of me?' And the man nodded, and promised that he would take care of her forever. And the little girl realized that no matter who you are, and no matter what has happened to you, that someone will always love you more than anything else. The end."  
She looked at him with those innocent black eyes, and spoke to him softly.  
"Mister King...You won't leave us, will you?"  
"I will never leave you," he said, his voice warm and reassuring.  
At least, I hope not.  
The little girl burst into a grin and hugged King around his thick neck. Her angelic face buried itself safely into his cheek, and as the little girl grasped on to him lovingly King thought that he would burst into tears right there. All worries about money had completely faded from his mind.   
"Ahh! Mister King! Your whiskers hurt!" She giggled.  
"Well, what do you want me to do about it?" he inquired her happily, bouncing her up and down in his cradled arms as he walked her to her bed.  
"You should shave!" King laughed again and arrived at her room. She shared it with four other children, all of them locked in their own peaceful slumbers. King tenderly set the girl down on her bed and tucked her into her tattered yet comfortable covers. She looked up at him with half-asleep eyes and spoke once more before she slept.  
"I love you, Mister King."  
"I love you too, Julia. Sleep tight." He gently planted a kiss on her forehead, rose from her side and strode out of the room.   
With that interlude, King knew he would have to return to the red tape. He sat down at the desk in his room and pored over the mountain of paperwork there. The first papers he grabbed invoked a peculiar sort of coincidence, and he looked at the header with surprise.  
  
"Adoption form:  
New parent: Michelle Chang  
  
Adopted child: Julia"  
  
He turned back to Julia's room. She was asleep, a place she could flee from her past, a not-so-easy task for the older King. He looked at the paper, shook his head and headed back outside.   
Sitting at the table once again, he picked up the filled mug and poured it onto the dry ground, kicking up a cloud of dust that slowly faded in the wind. There was no need for drunkenness. King could not escape from what he faced, but he could confront it, and he had to. The future of twenty of his best friends depended on it.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: I'm not entirely sure why I try at this fandom, because everything seems to get drowned out by the obscene amount of Xiaoyin or - dare I say it? - Hwoarang/Jin fic inundating the category. I mean, it's perfectly okay to take creative license when writing fanfiction, but Jin is an EMOTIONLESS PIECE OF CARDBOARD FWAAA. He has no feelings, personality or character. For example, he states in his Tekken 3 bio that he likes his "Mother's precepts". What? Boring! You've got characters like Anna who list theirs as Tom and Jerry and all Jin can bring himself to care about is how his mommy trains him? We all know Jun is cooler than him anyway. How can people WRITE him? I can't stand it. Uh, this is a lot longer than it should have been. Sorry. Review? =) 


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